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Overview

WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE From the highly acclaimed, multiple award-winning Anthony Doerr, the beautiful, stunningly ambitious instant New York Times bestseller about a blind French girl and a German boy whose paths collide in occupied France as both try to survive the devastation of World War II.

Marie-Laure lives with her father in Paris near the Museum of Natural History, where he works as the master of its thousands of locks. When she is six, Marie-Laure goes blind and her father builds a perfect miniature of their neighborhood so she can memorize it by touch and navigate her way home. When she is twelve, the Nazis occupy Paris and father and daughter flee to the walled citadel of Saint-Malo, where Marie-Laure’s reclusive great-uncle lives in a tall house by the sea. With them they carry what might be the museum’s most valuable and dangerous jewel.

In a mining town in Germany, the orphan Werner grows up with his younger sister, enchanted by a crude radio they find. Werner becomes an expert at building and fixing these crucial new instruments, a talent that wins him a place at a brutal academy for Hitler Youth, then a special assignment to track the resistance. More and more aware of the human cost of his intelligence, Werner travels through the heart of the war and, finally, into Saint-Malo, where his story and Marie-Laure’s converge.

Doerr’s “stunning sense of physical detail and gorgeous metaphors” (San Francisco Chronicle) are dazzling. Deftly interweaving the lives of Marie-Laure and Werner, he illuminates the ways, against all odds, people try to be good to one another. Ten years in the writing, a National Book Award finalist, All the Light We Cannot See is a magnificent, deeply moving novel from a writer “whose sentences never fail to thrill” (Los Angeles Times).

Product Details

About the Author

Anthony Doerr is the author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel All the Light We Cannot See. He is also the author of two story collections Memory Wall and The Shell Collector, the novel About Grace, and the memoir Four Seasons in Rome. He has won four O. Henry Prizes, the Rome Prize, the New York Public Library’s Young Lions Award, the National Magazine Award for fiction, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the Story Prize. Doerr lives in Boise, Idaho, with his wife and two sons.

Read an Excerpt

All the Light We Cannot See

Marie-Laure LeBlanc is a tall and freckled six-year-old in Paris with rapidly deteriorating eyesight when her father sends her on a children’s tour of the museum where he works. The guide is a hunchbacked old warder hardly taller than a child himself. He raps the tip of his cane against the floor for attention, then leads his dozen charges across the gardens to the galleries.

The children watch engineers use pulleys to lift a fossilized dinosaur femur. They see a stuffed giraffe in a closet, patches of hide wearing off its back. They peer into taxidermists’ drawers full of feathers and talons and glass eyeballs; they flip through two-hundred-year-old herbarium sheets bedecked with orchids and daisies and herbs.

Eventually they climb sixteen steps into the Gallery of Mineralogy. The guide shows them agate from Brazil and violet amethysts and a meteorite on a pedestal that he claims is as ancient as the solar system itself. Then he leads them single file down two twisting staircases and along several corridors and stops outside an iron door with a single keyhole. “End of tour,” he says.

A girl says, “But what’s through there?”

“Behind this door is another locked door, slightly smaller.”

“And what’s behind that?”

“A third locked door, smaller yet.”

“What’s behind that?”

“A fourth door, and a fifth, on and on until you reach a thirteenth, a little locked door no bigger than a shoe.”

The children lean forward. “And then?”

“Behind the thirteenth door”—the guide flourishes one of his impossibly wrinkled hands—“is the Sea of Flames.”

Puzzlement. Fidgeting.

“Come now. You’ve never heard of the Sea of Flames?”

The children shake their heads. Marie-Laure squints up at the naked bulbs strung in three-yard intervals along the ceiling; each sets a rainbow-colored halo rotating in her vision.

The guide hangs his cane on his wrist and rubs his hands together. “It’s a long story. Do you want to hear a long story?”

They nod.

He clears his throat. “Centuries ago, in the place we now call Borneo, a prince plucked a blue stone from a dry riverbed because he thought it was pretty. But on the way back to his palace, the prince was attacked by men on horseback and stabbed in the heart.”

“Stabbed in the heart?”

“Is this true?”

A boy says, “Hush.”

“The thieves stole his rings, his horse, everything. But because the little blue stone was clenched in his fist, they did not discover it. And the dying prince managed to crawl home. Then he fell unconscious for ten days. On the tenth day, to the amazement of his nurses, he sat up, opened his hand, and there was the stone.

“The sultan’s doctors said it was a miracle, that the prince never should have survived such a violent wound. The nurses said the stone must have healing powers. The sultan’s jewelers said something else: they said the stone was the largest raw diamond anyone had ever seen. Their most gifted stonecutter spent eighty days faceting it, and when he was done, it was a brilliant blue, the blue of tropical seas, but it had a touch of red at its center, like flames inside a drop of water. The sultan had the diamond fitted into a crown for the prince, and it was said that when the young prince sat on his throne and the sun hit him just so, he became so dazzling that visitors could not distinguish his figure from light itself.”

“Are you sure this is true?” asks a girl.

“Hush,” says the boy.

“The stone came to be known as the Sea of Flames. Some believed the prince was a deity, that as long as he kept the stone, he could not be killed. But something strange began to happen: the longer the prince wore his crown, the worse his luck became. In a month, he lost a brother to drowning and a second brother to snakebite. Within six months, his father died of disease. To make matters even worse, the sultan’s scouts announced that a great army was gathering in the east.

“The prince called together his father’s advisers. All said he should prepare for war, all but one, a priest, who said he’d had a dream. In the dream the Goddess of the Earth told him she’d made the Sea of Flames as a gift for her lover, the God of the Sea, and was sending the jewel to him through the river. But when the river dried up, and the prince plucked it out, the goddess became enraged. She cursed the stone and whoever kept it.”

Every child leans forward, Marie-Laure along with them.

“The curse was this: the keeper of the stone would live forever, but so long as he kept it, misfortunes would fall on all those he loved one after another in unending rain.”

“Live forever?”

“But if the keeper threw the diamond into the sea, thereby delivering it to its rightful recipient, the goddess would lift the curse. So the prince, now sultan, thought for three days and three nights and finally decided to keep the stone. It had saved his life; he believed it made him indestructible. He had the tongue cut out of the priest’s mouth.”

“Ouch,” says the youngest boy.

“Big mistake,” says the tallest girl.

“The invaders came,” says the warder, “and destroyed the palace, and killed everyone they found, and the prince was never seen again, and for two hundred years no one heard any more about the Sea of Flames. Some said the stone was recut into many smaller stones; others said the prince still carried the stone, that he was in Japan or Persia, that he was a humble farmer, that he never seemed to grow old.

“And so the stone fell out of history. Until one day, when a French diamond trader, during a trip to the Golconda Mines in India, was shown a massive pear-cut diamond. One hundred and thirty-three carats. Near-perfect clarity. As big as a pigeon’s egg, he wrote, and as blue as the sea, but with a flare of red at its core. He made a casting of the stone and sent it to a gem-crazy duke in Lorraine, warning him of the rumors of a curse. But the duke wanted the diamond very badly. So the trader brought it to Europe, and the duke fitted it into the end of a walking stick and carried it everywhere.”

“Uh-oh.”

“Within a month, the duchess contracted a throat disease. Two of their favorite servants fell off the roof and broke their necks. Then the duke’s only son died in a riding accident. Though everyone said the duke himself had never looked better, he became afraid to go out, afraid to accept visitors. Eventually he was so convinced that his stone was the accursed Sea of Flames that he asked the king to shut it up in his museum on the conditions that it be locked deep inside a specially built vault and the vault not be opened for two hundred years.”

“And?”

“And one hundred and ninety-six years have passed.”

All the children remain quiet a moment. Several do math on their fingers. Then they raise their hands as one. “Can we see it?”

“No.”

“Not even open the first door?”

“No.”

“Have you seen it?”

“I have not.”

“So how do you know it’s really there?”

“You have to believe the story.”

“How much is it worth, Monsieur? Could it buy the Eiffel Tower?”

“A diamond that large and rare could in all likelihood buy five Eiffel Towers.”

Gasps.

“Are all those doors to keep thieves from getting in?”

“Maybe,” the guide says, and winks, “they’re there to keep the curse from getting out.”

The children fall quiet. Two or three take a step back.

Marie-Laure takes off her eyeglasses, and the world goes shapeless. “Why not,” she asks, “just take the diamond and throw it into the sea?”

The warder looks at her. The other children look at her. “When is the last time,” one of the older boys says, “you saw someone throw five Eiffel Towers into the sea?”

There is laughter. Marie-Laure frowns. It is just an iron door with a brass keyhole.

The tour ends and the children disperse and Marie-Laure is reinstalled in the Grand Gallery with her father. He straightens her glasses on her nose and plucks a leaf from her hair. “Did you have fun, ma chérie?”

A little brown house sparrow swoops out of the rafters and lands on the tiles in front of her. Marie-Laure holds out an open palm. The sparrow tilts his head, considering. Then it flaps away.

Reading Group Guide

This reading group guide for All the Light We Cannot See includes an introduction, discussion questions, and ideas for enhancing your book club. The suggested questions are intended to help your reading group find new and interesting angles and topics for your discussion. We hope that these ideas will enrich your conversation and increase your enjoyment of the book.

Introduction

Ten years in the writing, Anthony Doerr’s All the Light We Cannot See is an epic work of historical fiction. With richly detailed language and characters who are both brave and heartbreaking, Doerr weaves together the stories of a French girl named Marie-Laure who has lost her eyesight and a German orphan named Werner. As Hitler’s occupied territory grows, Marie-Laure and Werner’s lives and families are torn apart by the war, yet this gorgeous novel is the story of people who, against the odds, find good in one another.

Topics & Questions for Discussion

1. The book opens with two epigraphs. How do these quotes set the scene for the rest of the book? Discuss how the radio plays a major part in the story and the time period. How do you think the impact of the radio back then compares with the impact of the Internet on today’s society?

2. The narration moves back and forth both in time and between different characters. How did this affect your reading experience? How do you think the experience would have been different if the story had been told entirely in chronological order?

3. Whose story did you enjoy the most? Was there any character you wanted more insight into?

4. When Werner and Jutta first hear the Frenchman on the radio, he concludes his broadcast by saying “Open your eyes and see what you can with them before they close forever” (pages 48–49), and Werner recalls these words throughout the book (pages 86, 264, and 409). How do you think this phrase relates to the overall message of the story? How does it relate to Madame Manec’s question: “Don’t you want to be alive before you die?” (page 270)?

5. On page 160, Marie-Laure realizes “This . . . is the basis of his fear, all fear. That a light you are powerless to stop will turn on you and usher a bullet to its mark.” How does this image constitute the most general basis of all fear? Do you agree?

6. Reread Madame Manec’s boiling frog analogy on page 284. Etienne later asks Marie-Laure, “Who was supposed to be the frog? Her? Or the Germans?” (page 328) Who did you think Madame Manec meant? Could it have been someone other than herself or the Germans? What does it say about Etienne that he doesn’t consider himself to be the frog?

7. On page 368, Werner thinks, “That is how things are . . . with everybody in this unit, in this army, in this world, they do as they’re told, they get scared, they move about with only themselves in mind. Name me someone who does not.” But in fact many of the characters show great courage and selflessness throughout the story in some way, big or small. Talk about the different ways they put themselves at risk in order to do what they think is right. What do you think were some shining moments? Who did you admire most?

8. On page 390, the author writes, “To shut your eyes is to guess nothing of blindness.” What did you learn or realize about blindness through Marie-Laure’s perspective? Do you think her being blind gave her any advantages?

9. One of Werner’s bravest moments is when he confronts von Rumpel: “All your life you wait, and then it finally comes, and are you ready?” (page 465) Have you ever had a moment like that? Were you ready? What would you say that moment is for some of the other characters?

10. Why do you think Marie-Laure gave Werner the little iron key? Why might Werner have gone back for the wooden house but left the Sea of Flames?

11. Von Rumpel seemed to believe in the power of the Sea of Flames, but was it truly a supernatural object or was it merely a gemstone at the center of coincidence? Do you think it brought any protection to Marie-Laure and/or bad luck to those she loved?

12. When Werner and Marie-Laure discuss the unknown fate of Captain Nemo at the end of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, Marie-Laure suggests the open-endedness is intentional and meant to make us wonder (page 472). Are there any unanswered questions from this story that you think are meant to make us wonder?

13. The 1970s image of Jutta is one of a woman deeply guilt-ridden and self-conscious about her identity as a German. Why do you think she feels so much guilt over the crimes of others? Can you relate to this? Do you think she should feel any shame about her identity?

14. What do you think of the author’s decision to flash forward at the end of the book? Did you like getting a peek into the future of some of these characters? Did anything surprise you?

15. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn once wrote that “the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being.” All the Light We Cannot See is filled with examples of human nature at its best and worst. Discuss the themes of good versus evil throughout the story. How do they drive each other? What do you think are the ultimate lessons that these characters and the resolution of their stories teach us?

Enhance Your Book Club

To learn more about the Battle of Normandy, find maps, timelines, photographs, and recommendations for films and books on the subject. Visit www.dday-overlord.com/eng/index.htm.

Take another look at Werner's redacted letter to Jutta on page 283. There’s so much blacked out that it’s hard to take any meaning from his message. What do you imagine he might have been writing about? Try to fill in the blanks with your best guess.

Radio was such an important part of Werner’s and Marie-Laure’s stories, and WWII in general. Visit the BBC archive collections at www.bbc.co.uk/archive/collections.shtml to listen to clips of Nazi propaganda, news reports, and personal accounts of World War II.

Have you ever read any Jules Verne? Pick up a copy of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (or view the 1954 film adaptation) and talk about why you think Anthony Doerr decided to make Verne’s fiction such a big part of his own.

Editorial Reviews

A Barnes & Noble Best Book of 2014

In this elegant bestseller set during World War II, Guggenheim fellow Anthony Doerr (The Shell Collector) uses radio’s ability to cross enemy lines as a device to weave together the fate of a young, blind French girl and an orphaned German boy. There is a fairytale quality to the book—the girl and her father must flee to a rickety old house by the sea; the boy must march with monsters and yet retain his humanity—that works perfectly with Doerr’s evocative prose. See all of the Best Fiction Books of 2014.

Boy meets girl in Anthony Doerr's hauntingly beautiful new book, but the circumstances are as elegantly circuitous as they can be…surprisingly fresh and enveloping…What's unexpected about its impact is that the novel does not regard Europeans' wartime experience in a new way. Instead, Mr. Doerr's nuanced approach concentrates on the choices his characters make and on the souls that have been lost, both living and dead.

The New York Times - Janet Maslin

★ 02/17/2014In 1944, the U.S. Air Force bombed the Nazi-occupied French coastal town of St. Malo. Doerr (Memory Wall) starts his story just before the bombing, then goes back to 1934 to describe two childhoods: those of Werner and Marie-Laure. We meet Werner as a tow-headed German orphan whose math skills earn him a place in an elite Nazi training school—saving him from a life in the mines, but forcing him to continually choose between opportunity and morality. Marie-Laure is blind and grows up in Paris, where her father is a locksmith for the Museum of Natural History, until the fall of Paris forces them to St. Malo, the home of Marie-Laure’s eccentric great-uncle, who, along with his longtime housekeeper, joins the Resistance. Doerr throws in a possibly cursed sapphire and the Nazi gemologist searching for it, and weaves in radio, German propaganda, coded partisan messages, scientific facts, and Jules Verne. Eventually, the bombs fall, and the characters’ paths converge, before diverging in the long aftermath that is the rest of the 20th century. If a book’s success can be measured by its ability to move readers and the number of memorable characters it has, Story Prize–winner Doerr’s novel triumphs on both counts. Along the way, he convinces readers that new stories can still be told about this well-trod period, and that war—despite its desperation, cruelty, and harrowing moral choices—cannot negate the pleasures of the world. (May)

Publishers Weekly

Doerr, a fabulous writer, pens an epic novel about a blind French girl and a German boy in occupied France and their struggles to survive World War II.

Seattle Times - Mary Ann Gwinn

All the Light We Cannot See is a dazzling, epic work of fiction. Anthony Doerr writes beautifully about the mythic and the intimate, about snails on beaches and armies on the move, about fate and love and history and those breathless, unbearable moments when they all come crashing together.

Jess Walter

Anthony Doerr writes beautifully… A tour de force.

Deseret Morning News - Elizabeth Reed

Intricate… A meditation on fate, free will, and the way that, in wartime, small choices can have vast consequences.

New Yorker

There is so much in this book. It is difficult to convey the complexity, the detail, the beauty and the brutality of this simple story.

Aspen Daily News - Carole O'Brien

Beautifully written… Soulful and addictive.

The Missourian - Chris Stuckenschneider

A novel to live in, learn from, and feel bereft over when the last page is turned, Doerr’s magnificently drawn story seems at once spacious and tightly composed. . . . Doerr masterfully and knowledgeably recreates the deprived civilian conditions of war-torn France and the strictly controlled lives of the military occupiers.

Booklist (starred review)

Sometimes a novel doesn’t merely transport. It immerses, engulfs, keeps you caught within its words until the very end, when you blink and remember there’s a world beyond the pages. All the Light We Cannot See is such a book… Vibrant, poignant, delicately exquisite. Despite the careful building of time and place (so vivid you fall between the pages), it’s not a story of history; it’s a story of people living history.

Historical Novel Society

Stunning and ultimately uplifting… Doerr’s not-to-be-missed tale is a testament to the buoyancy of our dreams, carrying us into the light through the darkest nights.

Entertainment Weekly

The whole enthralls.

Good Housekeeping

A novel to live in, learn from, and feel bereft over when the last page is turned, Doerr’s magnificently drawn story seems at once spacious and tightly composed. . . . Doerr masterfully and knowledgeably recreates the deprived civilian conditions of war-torn France and the strictly controlled lives of the military occupiers.

Booklist

This tough-to-put-down book proves its worth page after lyrical page…Each and every person in this finely spun assemblage is distinct and true.

USA Today - Sharon Peters

Doerr has packed each of his scenes with such refractory material that All the Light We Cannot See reflects a dazzling array of themes….Startlingly fresh.

The Boston Globe - John Freeman

This jewel of a story is put together like a vintage timepiece, its many threads coming together so perfectly. Doerr’s writing and imagery are stunning. It’s been a while since a novel had me under its spell in this fashion. The story still lives on in my head.

Abraham Verghese

Stupendous…A beautiful, daring, heartbreaking, oddly joyous novel.

The Seattle Times - David Laskin

Doerr is an exquisite stylist; his talents are on full display.

NPR - Alan Cheuse

Gorgeous… moves with the pace of a thriller… Doerr imagines the unseen grace, the unseen light that, occasionally, surprisingly, breaks to the surface even in the worst of times.

San Francisco Chronicle - Dan Cryer

Endlessly bold and equally delicate…An intricate miracle of invention, narrative verve, and deep research lightly held, but above all a miracle of humanity….Anthony Doerr’s novel celebrates—and also accomplishes—what only the finest art can: the power to create, reveal, and augment experience in all its horror and wonder, heartbreak and rapture.

Shelf Awareness

"What a delight! This novel has exquisite writing and a wonderfully suspenseful story. A book you'll tell your friends about..."

Frances Itani

Anthony Doerr again takes language beyond mortal limits.

Vanity Fair - Elissa Schappell

Doerr deftly guides All the Light We Cannot See toward the day Werner’s and Marie-Laure lives intersect during the bombing of Saint-Malo in what may be his best work to date.

Christian Science Monitor - Yvonne Zipp

History intertwines with irresistible fiction—secret radio broadcasts, a cursed diamond, a soldier’s deepest doubts—into a richly compelling, bittersweet package.

People (3 1/2 stars) - Mary Pols

Vivid…[All the Light We Cannot See] brims with scrupulous reverence for all forms of life. The invisible light of the title shines long after the last page.

Cleveland Plain Dealer - Tricia Springstubb

Exquisite…Mesmerizing…Nothing short of brilliant.

Portland Oregonian - Alice Evans

Intricately structured…All the Light We Cannot See is a work of art and of preservation.

BBC - Jane Ciabattari

Doerr sees the world as a scientist, but feels it as a poet. He knows about everything—radios, diamonds, mollusks, birds, flowers, locks, guns—but he also writes a line so beautiful, creates an image or scene so haunting, it makes you think forever differently about the big things—love, fear, cruelty, kindness, the countless facets of the human heart. Wildly suspenseful, structurally daring, rich in detail and soul, Doerr’s new novel is that novel, the one you savor, and ponder, and happily lose sleep over, then go around urging all your friends to read—now.

J.R. Moehringer

A tender exploration of this world's paradoxes; the beauty of the laws of nature and the terrible ends to which war subverts them; the frailty and the resilience of the human heart; the immutability of a moment and the healing power of time. The language is as expertly crafted as the master locksmith's models in the story, and the settings as intricately evoked. A compelling and uplifting novel.

M.L. Stedman

Enthrallingly told, beautifully written…Every piece of back story reveals information that charges the emerging narrative with significance, until at last the puzzle-box of the plot slides open to reveal the treasure hidden inside.

Washington Post - Amanda Vaill

Magnificent.

The Guardian (UK) - Carmen Callil

Incandescent… a luminous work of strife and transcendence… with characters as noble as they are enthralling

O, the Oprah magazine - Hamilton Cain

To open a book by Anthony Doerr is to open a door on humanity…His sentences shimmer…His paragraphs are luminous with bright, sparkling beauty.

The craftsmanship of Doerr’s book is rooted in his ability to inhabit the lives of Marie-Laure and Werner…[A] fine novel.

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette - Steve Novak

A beautiful, expansive tale…Ambitious and majestic.

Los Angeles Times - Steph Cha

Anthony Doerr can find the universe in a grain of sand and write characters I care about with my whole heart.

Karen Russell

★ 2014-03-06Doerr presents us with two intricate stories, both of which take place during World War II; late in the novel, inevitably, they intersect. In August 1944, Marie-Laure LeBlanc is a blind 16-year-old living in the walled port city of Saint-Malo in Brittany and hoping to escape the effects of Allied bombing. D-Day took place two months earlier, and Cherbourg, Caen and Rennes have already been liberated. She's taken refuge in this city with her great-uncle Etienne, at first a fairly frightening figure to her. Marie-Laure's father was a locksmith and craftsman who made scale models of cities that Marie-Laure studied so she could travel around on her own. He also crafted clever and intricate boxes, within which treasures could be hidden. Parallel to the story of Marie-Laure we meet Werner and Jutta Pfennig, a brother and sister, both orphans who have been raised in the Children's House outside Essen, in Germany. Through flashbacks we learn that Werner had been a curious and bright child who developed an obsession with radio transmitters and receivers, both in their infancies during this period. Eventually, Werner goes to a select technical school and then, at 18, into the Wehrmacht, where his technical aptitudes are recognized and he's put on a team trying to track down illegal radio transmissions. Etienne and Marie-Laure are responsible for some of these transmissions, but Werner is intrigued since what she's broadcasting is innocent—she shares her passion for Jules Verne by reading aloud 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. A further subplot involves Marie-Laure's father's having hidden a valuable diamond, one being tracked down by Reinhold von Rumpel, a relentless German sergeant-major. Doerr captures the sights and sounds of wartime and focuses, refreshingly, on the innate goodness of his major characters.

Kirkus Reviews

Incandescent…Mellifluous and unhurried…Characters as noble as they are enthralling. Doerr looms myriad strains into a luminous work of strife and transcendence.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

All the Light We Cannot See: A Novel 4.4 out of 5based on
0 ratings.
790 reviews.

Anonymous

More than 1 year ago

I seldom write a review, but after reading this wonderful book I had to share my thoughts...never heard of this author but was recomended
This author writes with so much thought and crafting of each chapter I was totally drawn in to the story...I wanted more
His writing is wonderfully poetic and mesmerizing and informs a good deal of history that most people are probably not aware of
This rates in the top 10 of my favorite books
Did not want to put it down and have ordered one of his previous books...please enjoy

readerbdj

More than 1 year ago

One of the best stories I've ever. Beautifully written with history and romance included very gracefully. Don't be put off by the length. The construction of the novel is so unique,
the story unfolds easily. It is a book that one wished would never end. I recommend it highly.

queen-of_books

More than 1 year ago

All the Light We Cannot See is a poignant look at the devastation that comes with war and how it leads people along roads they would never have taken in other circumstances. Set in WW II Germany and France with forays into the Soviet Union, it tells the parallel journeys of Marie Laure, a blind German girl, and Werner Pfennig, a German orphan. Werner&rsquo;s gift with electronics attracts the attention of Nazi military technicians who drag him into the Hitler Youth and, eventually, into the war where he is responsible for determining the coordinates of enemy resistance fighters using hidden radios. Marie Laure is the beloved daughter of the French National Museum locksmith. He flees Paris with his daughter when the Germans invade, going to stay with his housebound uncle, Etienne, in St. Malo.
The book begins when the child Werner and Etienne&rsquo;s paths cross over the radio waves. Etienne brother had recorded ten children&rsquo;s radio shows and Etienne played them over the wireless radio. Werner and his sister listened to them faithfully sparking Werner&rsquo;s interest in science and electronics. Interestingly, the book ends when the soldier Werner&rsquo;s path crosses with Marie Laure. He hears Marie Laure reading a book over the same wireless while requesting help between sentences and goes to her aid instead of reporting her. Between these two events, Doerr shows the paths followed by the two children and how their personal characteristics determine the wartime choices they make. Part of the story includes the search for an ancient diamond rumored to bring death to those closest to the person who owns it. Marie Laure is at the crux of this portion of the story. She must decide whether to hold on to the stone or get rid of it. The question in her mind is whether the rumors are true and can she affect whether the stone&rsquo;s power will prevail.
Some readers may be confused by Doerr&rsquo;s use of parallel stories while moving back and forth in time, however, if readers pay attention to the time lines at the beginning of each chapter, they should not have difficulty keeping up with the story. All the Light We Cannot See examines the roads ordinary people take to protect themselves when faced with circumstances beyond their control.

DonnaRae

More than 1 year ago

You, Mr. Doerr, have a new fan. Love your writing style. Love your story - it will stay in my heart for a long, long time - and then I will read it again.

crossword69

More than 1 year ago

Never having read an Anthony Doerr book prior to this, I was inspired to read this only by topic and reviews from B&amp;N ratings. Not only is the 5-star rating pertinent, if there was a 6-star rating, this book would earn that ranking. The characters are fully understandable, interesting, and fleshed out. The historical value of the book rings true to facts regarding the confusing monstrosities of war. I will definitely invest time to read other Doerr books as quickly as possible!

Anonymous

More than 1 year ago

A beautiful, beautiful story. This is what reading is all about. Thank you, Mr. Doerr.

Anonymous

More than 1 year ago

My kind of book. I like and need the history -- if you don't have a setting you don't understand the people. He did a lot of research on a number of things.
I bet he can put together a radio in no time. Try it, you'll like it!

tori_g

More than 1 year ago

This book is the standard by which all beautiful books should be held.

juliusa

More than 1 year ago

Very simply.....stunning!

4x4_luvr

More than 1 year ago

After reading several other recently-written/published &quot;recommended&quot; books and being horribly disappointed, I need you to know that as I finished this one, I am struggling to want to rejoin my own world again. I feel displaced, like I should still be in this story. It has been a long time since a book has made me feel this way - has taken me so willingly into its covers. There is so much that is beautiful about this book, from word choice to writing to plot to war setting handled honestly and disturbingly real yet delicately, right down to the way the story was crafted, where the timelines of the story converge together at just the precisely correct defining moment... even by the ending, I am in love with the author's choice of what parts to resolve, and how the resolutions happened, and what he chose to not resolve. I'm not even going to read the reviews that find something bad about this book. They don't deserve my attention. Thank you Mr. Doerr for getting me excited about reading again - after an entire summer of reading a book a week, I had all but given up on contemporary literature. To have this magical feeling again where a story has so completely claimed me and drew me in, and where I was left at the end feeling sated by the story, yet somehow hungering to start it all over again, has been a gift I will not soon forget.

Anonymous

More than 1 year ago

Amazing book. Great story, and well written. Amazing story of events during the era of WW 2.

Anonymous

More than 1 year ago

Each year I yearn for a book that pulls me in and doesn't let go! This story is one I did not want to end! Beautifully written and one I will remember for a very long time. I have recommended it over and over again!

Anonymous

More than 1 year ago

The author has done an incredible job with this book. Telling about World War II from the perspective of these children, coming of age. (German and French) Amazing story, how do people survive emotionally and mentally after such an experience? What a loss to society when people "turn" on each other. A lesson human beings never seem to learn. Can't wait to share it at book club. I will read other books by Doerr.

Anonymous

More than 1 year ago

I finished this book a couple of weeks ago and still can't get over how much I enjoyed reading it. Beautifully written.

Anonymous

More than 1 year ago

Anyone who is interested in WWII and loves a beautifully written novel will be enthralled with this book.

kelties_mom

More than 1 year ago

very thoughtful and eloquent writing. Exceptional from start to finish. Will engage you from the very first page, and leave you wanting for more......

Anonymous

More than 1 year ago

Anonymous

More than 1 year ago

It was amazing thrilling novel felt so real

read_jan

More than 1 year ago

This book is nothing short of a masterpiece. It exemplifies the balance of characters and story. There are very few books that give your almost a real life experience, I would say Anthony Doerr's work is one of those few. I am looking forward to the movie!

Anonymous

More than 1 year ago

Anonymous

More than 1 year ago

Read this one!

BookLoverCT

More than 1 year ago

This was a very different look at WWII. The story of a blind girl, and an orphan who enjoyed radios. The way they actually ended up interacting with each other, unknowingly is an interesting story. I loved the book!

Anonymous

More than 1 year ago

Excellent, loved the writing style. A WWII story told from a whole different point of view. Magical

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